DH Article: Catalyst AI - In Depth

***Veridian3*** · Sep 21, 2004, 11:50 AM

Also breaking cover today with the X700XT is ATI's new driver feature - CATALYST AI. You can read all about the new Catalyst Control Centre feature by clicking the link below...

"As well as the texture optimization algorithm there is a second aspect to Catalyst AI and that is the application specific optimizations and tweaks. Examples of these application specific items are forcing Anti Aliasing off in the driver for Splinter Cell or Prince Of Persia because AA doesn’t work in those titles. ATI have informed us that they will never specifically detect a synthetic benchmark with Catalyst AI optimizations however some benchmarks may see improved scores due to using game engines that have improvements within the driver. ATI have also guaranteed that they will only optimize if they can do so without any reduction in Image Quality."

Full Article

Dom · Sep 21, 2004, 12:02 PM

Nice article.

~~HawK~~ · Sep 21, 2004, 12:16 PM

Quote:

I'll leave you to make your own conclusions (and discuss in our forum) for IQ because really its a "personal preference thing" however its worth commenting on a couple of aspects of the source screenshots. Firstly the 6800U screenshots have a really bad distortion at the base of each screen. This appears to be a driver bug in 66.31 (and a rather strange one for a WHQL driver) and does not appear during the actual running of the engine. When comparing screenshots you should try to ignore this and the water at the base of the tunnel as that is different in every screen. Pay close attention to the walls, items and floors for comparisons.

Some time ago there was talk of NV driver would recognise when a screenshot was taken, and used then a higher quality rendering for that screenshot..
Would that possibly be connected with this screenshot bug??

Btw looking forward to next driver, might even me persuading to use the CCC

Good Article, we are getting used to reading good article on DH

wiskerbizkit · Sep 21, 2004, 12:38 PM

So this is just an overhyped crock then

***Veridian3*** · Sep 21, 2004, 12:49 PM

Whats overhyped about it and whats bad about it?

bug77 · Sep 21, 2004, 12:56 PM

Great! So now we have a CCC only option that could be nothing more than a slider in the old CP. On top of that, ATi points out that the benefits of this option may cancel themselves under some circumstances. (Note that the NORMAL option was used anyway by the driver).
Way to go! Any more crap for us?

***Veridian3*** · Sep 21, 2004, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bug77

Great! So now we have a CCC only option that could be nothing more than a slider in the old CP. On top of that, ATi points out that the benefits of this option may cancel themselves under some circumstances. (Note that the NORMAL option was used anyway by the driver).
Way to go! Any more crap for us?

Wrong.

Becasue of AI starting with the next public release (4.10) the drivers/CCC will be letting the app decide what filtering is used. For example Unreal Tournament. In previous cats if the user enabled “quality” anisotropic filtering, only the first stage of textures had trilinear filtering applied. The rest of the texture stages had bilinear filtering applied. Cat AI. performs an advanced level of texture analysis (X series) to provide higher performance levels with no distinguishable difference in image quality.

There are also other advantages which i could list however i'd assume you'd be as closed minded about them too, so i wont bother.

Thats the second comment in this thread where someone thinks they know it all and actually they know very little about AI. People should start learning more about the new options before they start bitching imo. Starting here if reply's are not helpful, constructive or polite they will be deleted.

snake · Sep 21, 2004, 01:20 PM

R9600 series ? Does it mean R3xx series ?
And i'd like to see some R3xx bench with this option activated, because so many
people DON'T have a X800 and the results would be much more interesting for them...

bug77 · Sep 21, 2004, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veridian3

Wrong.

Becasue of AI starting with the next public release (4.10) the drivers/CCC will be letting the app decide what filtering is used. For example Unreal Tournament. In previous cats if the user enabled “quality” anisotropic filtering, only the first stage of textures had trilinear filtering applied. The rest of the texture stages had bilinear filtering applied. Cat AI. performs an advanced level of texture analysis (X series) to provide higher performance levels with no distinguishable difference in image quality.

There are also other advantages which i could list however i'd assume you'd be as closed minded about them too, so i wont bother.

Thats the second comment in this thread where someone thinks they know it all and actually they know very little about AI. People should start learning more about the new options before they start bitching imo. Starting here if reply's are not helpful, constructive or polite they will be deleted.

Hey! I'm not close minded (at least, I'm trying not to be). I even own an ATi card and my next one will still be an ATi.
From what I've read, this seems to be just an adaptive AF. Why is it impossible to do with the old CP?
As ATi said, this requires more processing power, so it's basically a trade-off. If you know more, please, share with us.

CerebriX · Sep 21, 2004, 01:24 PM

no i believe r3xx just got the shaft my friend. bought my card in what was it, like december 03 so that makes my card only what like 9 months old(my 9800xt)? gee that just sucks. thanks for the kick in the nuts there.

Dwarden · Sep 21, 2004, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CerebriX

no i believe r3xx just got the shaft my friend. bought my card in what was it, like december 03 so that makes my card only what like 9 months old(my 9800xt)? gee that just sucks. thanks for the kick in the nuts there.

it's not kick in nuts, if i understood this correctly it's only for RV360 and R4xx because of core architecture ...

***Veridian3*** · Sep 21, 2004, 01:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bug77

Hey! I'm not close minded (at least, I'm trying not to be). I even own an ATi card and my next one will still be an ATi.
From what I've read, this seems to be just an adaptive AF. Why is it impossible to do with the old CP?
As ATi said, this requires more processing power, so it's basically a trade-off. If you know more, please, share with us.

In theory i guess some of the AI stuff could be added to the old CP...but not all, and going forward things will happen that are only possible in CCC to do with AI. Add to that the fact that CCC makes a lot of other stuff possible that the old CP doesnt and there is no reason to develop any features for the old CP because they wouldnt be as good as the CCC version or have partial functionality.

CCC is the way forward, is improving all the time and i dont really see the problem with using it over the old CP.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Sep 21, 2004, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veridian3

Thats the second comment in this thread where someone thinks they know it all and actually they know very little about AI. People should start learning more about the new options before they start bitching imo.

Quoted for truth! It's been happening since CCC day one. Some of the biggest complainers (like Tiribulus for example) have never even installed it little lone used it and have no Idea what they are talking about. But pretend to some how magically know it all....

Quote:

Originally Posted by bug77

Hey! I'm not close minded (at least, I'm trying not to be). I even own an ATi card and my next one will still be an ATi.

From what I've read, this seems to be just an adaptive AF. Why is it impossible to do with the old CP?

As ATi said, this requires more processing power, so it's basically a trade-off. If you know more, please, share with us.

The Old CP No, Why? Because CCC is the new CP and it's far easier and faster to make changes, fixes, add features etc and allows them to do things you could never do with the old classic CP.

more processing power thats in the advanced mode and as witten it uses a little more processing power so if you don't have a powerfull enough system it cancels it self out.

WisMerHill · Sep 21, 2004, 01:47 PM

Very nice and informing article Stuart ! well done.

a few remarks tho,
- some typo's i saw as: Nnumerous
- plz remove the CounterStrike source logo from the graph if you mean the source engine and not the CS source as you specificly noted.
- For UT2004, did u use UT2004, UT2003 or both ?
- UT2003 benchmark is not synthetic i believe since it measures actual game performance by loading up the game with a map with bots and action (could be wrong tho, dunno what exactly qualifies for the synthetic) Also there is a UT2004 benchmark if you're interrested, it might be closer related to the graphs than using the UT2003 bench.

no punn intented, just trying to help.

***Veridian3*** · Sep 21, 2004, 01:50 PM

UT2004 was benched using actual gameplay.

UT2003 was benched using the inbuilt tool which does, as you say, use ingame maps +bots. It is classed as synthetic because its prerecorded and you have no interaction i think.

We are aware of the typo, thanks... strange how you can read something like a million times and never notice that til your reading it after posting.

BWX · Sep 21, 2004, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veridian3

UT2004 was benched using actual gameplay.

We are aware of the typo, thanks... strange how you can read something like a million times and never notice that til your reading it after posting.

It is strange, I've been wondering about that since grade school.

Anyway that is a pretty in-depth description of AI, but I still have a question.

It seems as though w/o CCC the optimizations are still in place but set to "standard"..

With the CCC you have 2 more options:

1) Turn them off all together (the optimizations)
-or-
2) Turn them up a level, which sometimes gives you an advantage and sometimes doesn't do to the CPU overhead..

Is that about the gist of it? If so, the people w/o the CCC are still basically getting the best performance, just a little less "adjustability"?

wiskerbizkit · Sep 21, 2004, 02:23 PM

I don't mean to be bitching if i am i'm sorry, I really do love this place.. Its alot of things that have happened in the last year or so IMO. having to save for the 9800 so i can play those dx9 based games at least i remember that being one of the selling points , come to find out half my games are "optimised for nvidia". Tricked into batlefield vietnam (which fried two psu's on me) and here comes the x800 stealing the glory (and CCC features) and a massive pricetag to boot! Its so frusterating trying to get the most performance out of my 9800 while looking over my shoulder at my bro's rig , Identical to mine except 5900xt, and he's having a blast. Doom 3 runs flawlessly, wish i could say the same for me.

Guess what i mean is the preview got my hopes up for something i could use

/vent exit

WisMerHill · Sep 21, 2004, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veridian3

UT2004 was benched using actual gameplay.

UT2003 was benched using the inbuilt tool which does, as you say, use ingame maps +bots. It is classed as synthetic because its prerecorded and you have no interaction i think.

We are aware of the typo, thanks... strange how you can read something like a million times and never notice that til your reading it after posting.

About the UT2003 bench (and consequently the UT2004) idd it's prerecorded but in the benchmark folder in UT2003 there are a number of batfiles which you can run and modify to your own wishes. HardOCP for instance always uses their own script for it. Also in the Stuff folder within the benchmark folder there are the ini's and settings used by the benchmark.exe, you can freely edit those as well. So you might call it synthetic but you have great freedom to construct your own unique UT200x benchmark, it's only harder when comparing to the default but that isn't the point here so that's no issue.
I actually believe it's better to make your own because of the control you have over it and no company knows what you'll actually test so "illegal" optimisations are not an option anymore (like the predefined path in 3Dmark which caused such a stir last year.)

About the typo's i sure know, don't we just all have that

Zardon · Sep 21, 2004, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wiskerbizkit

Its so frusterating trying to get the most performance out of my 9800 while looking over my shoulder at my bro's rig , Identical to mine except 5900xt, and he's having a blast. Doom 3 runs flawlessly, wish i could say the same for me.

He can look over his shoulder at you when you are both playing Half life 2. Doom 3 is only one game, and not a particularly enjoyable one at that.

wiskerbizkit · Sep 21, 2004, 02:31 PM

I hope to god you are right. maybe i should be directing my anger towards nvidia for whoring themselves out lol

Matt · Sep 21, 2004, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dwarden

it's not kick in nuts, if i understood this correctly it's only for RV360 and R4xx because of core architecture ...

If you read the part about AI. Its a CPU Optimization, which uses a lookup table. I'm no driver programmer but i guess this can be added to any series. Correct me if i'm wrong.

Which if this is true, i'm now looking at nvidia as my next card. After the way they sold XT's for HL2.
My 1 year old 9800 pro for the bin already

lol

WaltC · Sep 21, 2004, 02:50 PM

The most common mistake I see is the notion that currently ATi's trilinear optimizations are "always on" simply because the user can't manually turn them off. According to what ATi has said, the Catalyst trilinear opts are self-switching on & off, so they are never "on" in the sense that they are always on and always running optimized. In cases such as colored mipmaps and other cases in games in which ATi discovered that their opts would cause IQ degradation, the Catalysts auto-switch their tri-opts off automatically without user intervention so that normal trilinear IQ is maintained. (This is probably why the difference for the Catalysts between AI "off" and "on" in terms of frame-rate performance isn't as great as might be expected, at least in contrast with ForceWare's tri-opts implementation, because when "on" the Catalysts default to a self-switching state, whereas when "on" nVidia's drivers default to "always on" and operate whether IQ is degraded or not, unless the Forceware user manually shuts them off from the cp.)

The "AI" nomenclature (assuming "artificial intelligence" is what is meant) indicates that what ATi is doing is offering users a choice between using their "intelligent" self-switching tri-opts (meaning that when they are on they self-switch between on & off as each game requires and are never actually "always on") and an "always off" setting in which straight trilinear is always run and does not auto-switch on & off as is the case currently.

I know that some people will be happy to hear the news about the upcoming Catalyst AI, and I'm certainly not unhappy to hear it as at the least it will deflect the current undeserved PR criticism ATi gets over its self-switching tri-opts implementation, but I think it's important to remember that trilinear optimizations are *not* IQ-enhancing features akin to AA and AF, but rather are performance optimizations designed to increase frame-rate performance in games without sacrificing normal trilinear ("always off") IQ. As such, tri-opts really don't lend themselves well to "always on-off" manual settings but should, if they are used at all, intelligently switch on and switch off *without user intervention when playing a particular game* so that the goal of trilinear IQ with increased frame-rate performance can be achieved. That's my opinion, anyway...

~~BMG_Cya=-~~ · Sep 21, 2004, 02:54 PM

Nothing personal, but the article could have used a bit more info and
examples, whether visual or text. Came up short on that end, imo.

Giving more control, whether good or bad, is being given to the
user. That's good. Most of the tweaks talked about in the
article and in this thread, seem to be like the ones
available to one who uses 3rd party graphics tweaks on
regular basis. I think in the end, so far, it's another enthusiast
level option dumbed down to an entry level or n00b feature in a
driver set.

On the use of being CCC only...

I'm not going near the thing, until it's better optimized and I see
only a few complaints about it in driver release threads.

As for Doom3...

I don't understand where people get the idea that it only runs
well on nVidia or only the latest (x800 series) ATI cards. It
runs good, (not 120 fps...but 45-60 fps) and looks incredibe
on my last gen card. (9800XT) And I run it with near everything
maxed out, at a decent resolution. (1024 x 768 and above.)
Also, after I turned/forced on AA on in the CP, but turned it
off in the in-game menu, I got none of the jerkiness or
stuttering that everybody has been complaining of.

I posted some screens in the Demo now available thread.
The game looks that good, and runs smoooooooth on this end.

Dunno what all the crying was about....

I have read threads, here and in other forums, where people
with a 9800 Pro or 9600XT...were saying they only get
"10fps...and it locks up my computer and has stolen my
first born!!!" Well, not quite the last complaint was seen,
but you know what I mean.

These people must not know how to operate their PC.

Anyway...that's where I stand for what it's worth. Not
overly thrilled, but not a hostile user either.

~~BMG_Cya=-~~ · Sep 21, 2004, 02:58 PM

To WaltC:
If everything you said is true, it was explained very well.

bug77 · Sep 21, 2004, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veridian3

In theory i guess some of the AI stuff could be added to the old CP...but not all, and going forward things will happen that are only possible in CCC to do with AI. Add to that the fact that CCC makes a lot of other stuff possible that the old CP doesnt and there is no reason to develop any features for the old CP because they wouldnt be as good as the CCC version or have partial functionality.

CCC is the way forward, is improving all the time and i dont really see the problem with using it over the old CP.

Do you know why couldn't it be all added to the old CP? And what 'other stuff' is made possible by the new CCC? Of course one can develop new functions and add them to the CCC, but my guess is one could write them for the old CP as well.
Again, please tell if you know something I don't.
As far as new functions are concerned, I use modded drivers because they allow me to define a custom resolution. And ATi didn't manage to put that in until now.
My point is, from what I have read, AI is just a waste of time from the driver developers. If it has any kind of potential, why did they release it already? They could have worked on it a little longer and then say: 'Here, enable this and you'll see a 10% performance increase!' (Not that anyone would notice a 10% improvement without benchmarking). But as I see it now, the improvement is marginal at best. So why the big hype?

wiskerbizkit · Sep 21, 2004, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BMG_Cya=-

These people must not know how to operate their PC.

Knew that was coming

***Veridian3*** · Sep 21, 2004, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bug77

Do you know why couldn't it be all added to the old CP? And what 'other stuff' is made possible by the new CCC? Of course one can develop new functions and add them to the CCC, but my guess is one could write them for the old CP as well.
Again, please tell if you know something I don't.
As far as new functions are concerned, I use modded drivers because they allow me to define a custom resolution. And ATi didn't manage to put that in until now.
My point is, from what I have read, AI is just a waste of time from the driver developers. If it has any kind of potential, why did they release it already? They could have worked on it a little longer and then say: 'Here, enable this and you'll see a 10% performance increase!' (Not that anyone would notice a 10% improvement without benchmarking). But as I see it now, the improvement is marginal at best. So why the big hype?

Thats a question someone at ATI should be answering i think.

WaltC · Sep 21, 2004, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BMG_Cya=-

To WaltC:
If everything you said is true, it was explained very well.

Thanks, yes, that is the situation as I understand the current Catalyst tri-opts implementation.

To me, the issue boils down to the difference between an "optimzation" and a "rendering IQ feature." I think many analyses I've read on the subject of trilinear optimization routinely confuse the two to a certain extent. Here's how they boil down for me:

*desirable optimization: increases frame-rate performance without degrading IQ

*undesirable optimization: increases frame-rate performance at the expense of expected IQ

*rendering IQ feature: functions designed specifically to enhance rendering IQ which always degrade frame-rate perfomance in the process (such as AA and AF, for instance.)

That's why you'd want your optimizations (desirable, of course) to intelligently switch transparently in a set of drivers without user intervention, but you'd want to be able to manually switch on or off (either in the drivers themselves or from within a game) rendering IQ features like AA and AF. At least, that is my personal preference...

bug77 · Sep 21, 2004, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veridian3

Thats a question someone at ATI should be answering i think.

I'm glad we could agree.

tornado=[GSW]= · Sep 21, 2004, 04:00 PM

Great article and nice find on the optimizations, at least looks like ATI has been upto something. I dont know how much of a must-have feature this is going to be, but who knows, everything these days is about numbers, so maybe people will take the bite. Anyway IMHO, its still not the killer feature that will make people change to the CCC, not me..

Sep 21, 2004, 11:50 AM	#1
*Veridian3* Administrator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cloaked Posts: 4,832 Rep Power: 174	DH Article: Catalyst AI - In Depth Also breaking cover today with the X700XT is ATI's new driver feature - CATALYST AI. You can read all about the new Catalyst Control Centre feature by clicking the link below... "As well as the texture optimization algorithm there is a second aspect to Catalyst AI and that is the application specific optimizations and tweaks. Examples of these application specific items are forcing Anti Aliasing off in the driver for Splinter Cell or Prince Of Persia because AA doesn’t work in those titles. ATI have informed us that they will never specifically detect a synthetic benchmark with Catalyst AI optimizations however some benchmarks may see improved scores due to using game engines that have improvements within the driver. ATI have also guaranteed that they will only optimize if they can do so without any reduction in Image Quality." Full Article

Sep 21, 2004, 01:20 PM	#8
snake HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: France Posts: 421 Rep Power: 60 System Specs	R9600 series ? Does it mean R3xx series ? And i'd like to see some R3xx bench with this option activated, because so many people DON'T have a X800 and the results would be much more interesting for them... __________________ i7 930@4Ghz-DFI T3EH6-6Go OCZPC12800-GTX480+8800GT Barton 2600+@2.16 (188x11.5) # GeForce 6800 GT@Ultra 1.5Go PC3200 #Asus A7N8X Deluxe Bios 1008 26397 3DMark06/ 57736 3DMark01/163152 Aquamark3

Sep 21, 2004, 01:47 PM	#14
WisMerHill DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: Netherlands Posts: 468 Rep Power: 0	Very nice and informing article Stuart ! well done. a few remarks tho, - some typo's i saw as: Nnumerous - plz remove the CounterStrike source logo from the graph if you mean the source engine and not the CS source as you specificly noted. - For UT2004, did u use UT2004, UT2003 or both ? - UT2003 benchmark is not synthetic i believe since it measures actual game performance by loading up the game with a map with bots and action (could be wrong tho, dunno what exactly qualifies for the synthetic) Also there is a UT2004 benchmark if you're interrested, it might be closer related to the graphs than using the UT2003 bench. no punn intented, just trying to help. __________________ [color=sandybrown][color=white] [/color] [color=white][color=white]M[/color][color=white]y Computer[/color]: [/color][color=white]3DMark2001[/color][color=white] - [/color][color=white]3Dmark2003[/color][color=white] - [/color][color=white]3DMark200[/color][color=white]5[/color][color=white] - [/color][color=white]PCMark2004[/color][/color]

Sep 21, 2004, 02:50 PM	#22
WaltC DriverHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2003 Location: Deep in Martian soil where it's warm and the air is good Posts: 245 Rep Power: 0	The most common mistake I see is the notion that currently ATi's trilinear optimizations are "always on" simply because the user can't manually turn them off. According to what ATi has said, the Catalyst trilinear opts are self-switching on & off, so they are never "on" in the sense that they are always on and always running optimized. In cases such as colored mipmaps and other cases in games in which ATi discovered that their opts would cause IQ degradation, the Catalysts auto-switch their tri-opts off automatically without user intervention so that normal trilinear IQ is maintained. (This is probably why the difference for the Catalysts between AI "off" and "on" in terms of frame-rate performance isn't as great as might be expected, at least in contrast with ForceWare's tri-opts implementation, because when "on" the Catalysts default to a self-switching state, whereas when "on" nVidia's drivers default to "always on" and operate whether IQ is degraded or not, unless the Forceware user manually shuts them off from the cp.) The "AI" nomenclature (assuming "artificial intelligence" is what is meant) indicates that what ATi is doing is offering users a choice between using their "intelligent" self-switching tri-opts (meaning that when they are on they self-switch between on & off as each game requires and are never actually "always on") and an "always off" setting in which straight trilinear is always run and does not auto-switch on & off as is the case currently. I know that some people will be happy to hear the news about the upcoming Catalyst AI, and I'm certainly not unhappy to hear it as at the least it will deflect the current undeserved PR criticism ATi gets over its self-switching tri-opts implementation, but I think it's important to remember that trilinear optimizations are not IQ-enhancing features akin to AA and AF, but rather are performance optimizations designed to increase frame-rate performance in games without sacrificing normal trilinear ("always off") IQ. As such, tri-opts really don't lend themselves well to "always on-off" manual settings but should, if they are used at all, intelligently switch on and switch off without user intervention when playing a particular game so that the goal of trilinear IQ with increased frame-rate performance can be achieved. That's my opinion, anyway... Last edited by WaltC; Sep 21, 2004 at 03:04 PM.

Sep 21, 2004, 12:02 PM	#2
Dom DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 12,940 Rep Power: 0	Nice article.

Sep 21, 2004, 12:38 PM	#4
wiskerbizkit DH ***** hobo Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Columbia SC Posts: 467 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	So this is just an overhyped crock then

Sep 21, 2004, 12:49 PM	Thread Starter #5
*Veridian3* Administrator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cloaked Posts: 4,832 Rep Power: 174	Whats overhyped about it and whats bad about it?

Sep 21, 2004, 12:56 PM	#6
bug77 DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: around Posts: 792 Rep Power: 0	Great! So now we have a CCC only option that could be nothing more than a slider in the old CP. On top of that, ATi points out that the benefits of this option may cancel themselves under some circumstances. (Note that the NORMAL option was used anyway by the driver). Way to go! Any more crap for us?

Sep 21, 2004, 01:24 PM	#10
CerebriX Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 22 Rep Power: 0	no i believe r3xx just got the shaft my friend. bought my card in what was it, like december 03 so that makes my card only what like 9 months old(my 9800xt)? gee that just sucks. thanks for the kick in the nuts there.

Sep 21, 2004, 01:50 PM	Thread Starter #15
*Veridian3* Administrator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cloaked Posts: 4,832 Rep Power: 174	UT2004 was benched using actual gameplay. UT2003 was benched using the inbuilt tool which does, as you say, use ingame maps +bots. It is classed as synthetic because its prerecorded and you have no interaction i think. We are aware of the typo, thanks... strange how you can read something like a million times and never notice that til your reading it after posting.

Sep 21, 2004, 02:23 PM	#17
wiskerbizkit DH ***** hobo Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Columbia SC Posts: 467 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	I don't mean to be bitching if i am i'm sorry, I really do love this place.. Its alot of things that have happened in the last year or so IMO. having to save for the 9800 so i can play those dx9 based games at least i remember that being one of the selling points , come to find out half my games are "optimised for nvidia". Tricked into batlefield vietnam (which fried two psu's on me) and here comes the x800 stealing the glory (and CCC features) and a massive pricetag to boot! Its so frusterating trying to get the most performance out of my 9800 while looking over my shoulder at my bro's rig , Identical to mine except 5900xt, and he's having a blast. Doom 3 runs flawlessly, wish i could say the same for me. Guess what i mean is the preview got my hopes up for something i could use /vent exit

Sep 21, 2004, 02:31 PM	#20
wiskerbizkit DH ***** hobo Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Columbia SC Posts: 467 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	I hope to god you are right. maybe i should be directing my anger towards nvidia for whoring themselves out lol

Sep 21, 2004, 02:54 PM	#23
~~BMG_Cya=-~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 718 Rep Power: 0	Nothing personal, but the article could have used a bit more info and examples, whether visual or text. Came up short on that end, imo. Giving more control, whether good or bad, is being given to the user. That's good. Most of the tweaks talked about in the article and in this thread, seem to be like the ones available to one who uses 3rd party graphics tweaks on regular basis. I think in the end, so far, it's another enthusiast level option dumbed down to an entry level or n00b feature in a driver set. On the use of being CCC only... I'm not going near the thing, until it's better optimized and I see only a few complaints about it in driver release threads. As for Doom3... I don't understand where people get the idea that it only runs well on nVidia or only the latest (x800 series) ATI cards. It runs good, (not 120 fps...but 45-60 fps) and looks incredibe on my last gen card. (9800XT) And I run it with near everything maxed out, at a decent resolution. (1024 x 768 and above.) Also, after I turned/forced on AA on in the CP, but turned it off in the in-game menu, I got none of the jerkiness or stuttering that everybody has been complaining of. I posted some screens in the Demo now available thread. The game looks that good, and runs smoooooooth on this end. Dunno what all the crying was about.... I have read threads, here and in other forums, where people with a 9800 Pro or 9600XT...were saying they only get "10fps...and it locks up my computer and has stolen my first born!!!" Well, not quite the last complaint was seen, but you know what I mean. These people must not know how to operate their PC. Anyway...that's where I stand for what it's worth. Not overly thrilled, but not a hostile user either.

Sep 21, 2004, 02:58 PM	#24
~~BMG_Cya=-~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 718 Rep Power: 0	To WaltC: If everything you said is true, it was explained very well.

Sep 21, 2004, 04:00 PM	#30
tornado=[GSW]= Compulsive HW Monger Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Baton Rouge, LA, USA Posts: 144 Rep Power: 0	Great article and nice find on the optimizations, at least looks like ATI has been upto something. I dont know how much of a must-have feature this is going to be, but who knows, everything these days is about numbers, so maybe people will take the bite. Anyway IMHO, its still not the killer feature that will make people change to the CCC, not me..